lia sophia tomgirl

Mediterranean Burgers

2012-02-25T09:41:00.002-05:00

Believe it or not, this recipe was in our local grocery store flier and I have changed it to suit myself, but it's still pretty amazing. Even k-ster speaks highly of it.

I use ground turkey for these because I don't eat beef. I have never made them with beef so I can't imagine how they would taste. Mix in some feta and make patties, like these.

You are supposed to use Ranch dressing from a bottle for this next part, but you know me better than that! Instead, I buy these packets of dressing mix because the others have MSG in them.

Mix it with some thick, Greek yogurt and some cucumber. I use about half of packet of dressing mix and I usually use more than this 6 oz. container of yogurt, but it's all I had. Mix them together and let them sit while your burgers are cooking. I like to grill my burgers.

The pièce de résistance is these "miami" onion rolls. I don't know what you people in Miami do differently, but OMG these rolls are amazing. They really do justice to these burgers!

Split the rolls, put a burger on the roll and then slather on some of the yogurt dressing. It's yogurt, so slather away. Sometimes, turkey burgers can be a little dry, so this dressing takes care of that in an instant.

Nothing like "moming up" a burger with broccoli! I can't help it! I think you need a vegetable at every dinner. So I steamed some broccoli and squeezed some lemon juice on it. Yummmmmm.

Maybe I Better 'Splain Myself

2012-02-23T20:54:00.000-05:00

So, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of this picture that I took in Paris. To allay any fears you may have had, here's my story and I'm sticking to it.

a) Yes, I was with students when I took this picture, but I only knew about it because THEY pointed it out to US! They thought it was great that I took the picture to show my friends.

b) Remember that the students who were with me in Paris were 16-18 years old, hardly the young ages of my middle school students and therefore far less impressionable with silly pictures that had the word ass in them. And it's not like we were handing out detentions for saying dirty words. If that had been the case, then everyone would have had detention when we first arrived at the school and one of the French kids had a t-shirt that said Mother f-ing something or other all spelled out in English. That blew them away far more than Madame taking a picture of meat.

c) The ASS in the picture really was supposed to be ASSIETTE which is the French word for plate but clearly there wasn't room for the whole word.

d) It was about 10pm the night they found that sign, so we were all a little silly. This came right after we saw a restaurant called PANIS and as I looked at it and imagined one of them saying PENIS, that exact word came out of one of their mouths and I laughed out loud.

e) And no, my students do not read this blog, or if they do, it is not because I've told them about it or given them the address. I do have a blog for my students but I don't even use the blogger platform for it, so if they ever made the connection, they'd be more savvy than I would imagine. This blog here is just for us adults, as far as I know.

f) The part of Paris where this picture was located is known as the Latin Quarter. These particular streets are known for their ethnic foods and college student oriented places, and there was a strip club right in among the restaurants that not a single kid mentioned. Either they were too horrified to acknowledge it in front of us or they didn't see it. I can't decide.

All in all, the word ass was hardly the most shocking thing these kids saw while they were in Paris. The ads in store windows with naked or almost naked women advertising beauty products or clothing or whatever were probably far more shocking to most of them.

And that, my friends, is all she wrote.

Super Ass Gyros Available Here

2012-02-22T05:45:00.000-05:00

Nothing to worry about- they have air conditioning so you can eat your Super Ass Gyros in total comfort.

The French, always thinking about your comfort.

Hey Look, It's Me!

2012-02-21T01:02:00.000-05:00

Oh wait, that's not me. I think it's the woman behind me.

At Sacre Coeur, there are a million people running around with drawing paper who want to do your portrait. I approached a woman instead of her begging me, and I thought she'd be thrilled. She was like "ok, whatever" and I stood there while she drew this. I am quite certain this is not me. I've never made that face in my life.

This face down here? Sure. But that one up there? Totally someone living in her head.

Taking A Walk on the Wild Side

2012-02-20T02:47:00.002-05:00

Yesterday in Paris, we played in some traffic.


I did my impression of an old lady waiting for a bus in front of the Louvre.

Napoleon asked me to stay for supper but I told him if he can't offer me desserts like the one below, no thanks, Nap. Plus, I was afraid the food would never be passed down to my end of the table and then I'd get grouchy.

I tried on the crown jewels. I didn't even know France had crown jewels.

I ripped the arms off of the Venus de Milo. She's much more attractive this way, isn't she?

And I found my favorite treasure at the Louvre: the not so carefully stowed vacuum cleaner. I wonder which era this belongs in? No guards were watching this gem, so I almost stole it.

Striking Fear In the Hearts of French Teachers Who've Dragged Their Derrieres All the Way to Paris...

2012-02-19T02:59:00.001-05:00

So, our first day in Paris, we planned to go to the Eiffel Tower and take the elevator to the very top.

The tower had other plans for us.

Feel free to walk up the steps to the 2nd level or take an elevator to the first or 2nd level, but don't plan on going to the top. There's a problem with the elevator and when we asked how long it had been like that, the lady said "day before yesterday" and shrugged and that was the end of that. After 2 hours in line.

I've only ever been to the 2nd level and the view is fantastic, so I didn't really care. I've heard it's better from that level than the very top because the top is so very high!

THe tower has the most awesome glow that can't really be captured by my camera. These aren't too bad.

It's So Tiring When You're Royal

2012-02-17T03:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, we visited a castle/palace called Fontainebleau. I was under the impression that the current president lives there, but that is quite wrong. Everyone from Francois the 1st to Napoleon lived there at one point or another and now it's just pretty to look at.

The "pissing dogs" fountain. Lovely.

When you are royal, you can't be bothered to have to go find natural water, you just have your slaves dig a pond so you can fish and boat at your leisure.

You have lots of comfortable furniture to sit on all day while gazing at your hand made tapestries on the walls.

You have lots of secret staircases for the servants to run up and down and for antics to go on behind the king's back. You probably would not use these staircases yourselves because your wide dresses would probably never make it up and down the stairs.

You will have grandly opulent rooms for your ladies in waiting so sit and be comfortable while they wait. And wait. And wait some more.

You have sitting areas between staircases because it can be so tiring to go from one end of a wing to the other, you might need a comfy place to take a break and look at more tapestries.

Forget cathedrals, you will have your own chapel or two right in your house.

And my favorite: if you are Napoleon, you will have a bed here in your study in case you get tired.

Because walking all the way to your bedroom next door (I was standing in the study to take this picture of the bedroom!!) can be way too draining.

History Already Made

2012-02-16T03:04:00.001-05:00

This should probably be the warning label on my website! In typical French fashion, this is the warning you get for entering an area that might be dangerous. If you get hurt, you've been warned by this sign, so you can't sue. Too bad or as they say, tant pis.

As promised, here's a little information and pictures about the World War 1 field trip. I know my father got very excited when he heard WWI field trip and he's dying for pictures, so here's what I have.

The sun doesn't rise until about 8am so it's really hard to get up in the morning. On the other end of the day, it's nice to have light until almost 7pm, but leaving on a field trip at 7am and seeing darkness like it's 5am at home for us is hard. THese are some of the American kids as we all stood at the school waiting for our buses.

We ran into some unexpected traffic headed toward Paris, more than the typical rush hour, so we got off and went through some town.

I liked this road but I have no idea where it was. Notice there is a white line down the middle of the road, not yellow. We Americans can't get used to the missing yellow line.

It was not a pretty day and as we got out into the country, we saw lots of fields and gray skies. The sun tried to poke through, but it didn't have much luck and then it rained and we were out in the rain like a bunch of fools at one point.

This is in the Piccardie area which is in northern France. They grow wheat, corn, sugar beets and potatoes. A lot of the fields looked like they had just been turned over because they were really brown. Others just had grass growing on them, looking like they were waiting to be turned.

I think there is a rainbow in this picture, toward the right. We saw both sides of the rainbow, but not at the same time in an arc.

This might be the Somme river which is where the battle of the Somme took place. It might just be a canal. I told you this would not be 100% accurate!

This is a museum dedicated to La Grande Guerre, the "big" war. I always though WW2 was the big one, but they are called WW1 the big one. As I said yesterday, the US arrived late to this party, so I think the "big" part had already happened by the time we came on the scene and it was not so big by then.

The museum was actually in an old ruined castle and they made a nice modern museum inside. I didn't realize it was a castle until I started wandering around after lunch.

They had a nice way of displaying the uniforms and battle gear. They were set down in the floor and you could get a really good look at everything and it was nice that it wasn't behind glass. There were maps that explained what each thing was in the inset. I think this one above was the German outfit. I took pictures of the signs after this one so I would know which was which but I am pretty sure that was German.

This was the British soldier's stuff.

This was the gear that the French had on the front.

The German gear at the front.

The French uniforms.

The British gear at the front.

Not sure whose this was but I think it was French... The red and blue make me think French.

This is the town of Peronne which is where the museum is located. This is the center of town. I always think it's funny when they park like this because it looks like they are parked in the middle of the road but it's really meant for parking.

Outside the museum.

On the way out to the battlefields.

This is a British cemetery. They lost a lot of soldiers in this war and they were buried in France. The British commonwealth at that time included Ireland, Australia and parts of Africa. The German and French soldiers' families could have the remains sent home for burial, but the British commonwealth thought it was best to leave their soldiers in France. At the time, there was no quick way to transport remains back to places like Australia and Africa, and they didn't think it was fair that some could be brought back to their homeland in England or Ireland, but others couldn't be brought home, so they established British commonwealth cemeteries all over the area.

They are in the process of locating tunnels and trenches that were used during the war. The yellow flags indicate that there is a tunnel/trench below. I thought we would see open trenches but they aren't open in the area where we were. If you didn't know, you would just think they were hills.

And it's not really sacred. This is a house right across the street from where the yellow flags are. I asked if it was now named as historic land and they said yes, but you still can build on it if you want to go through all of the red tape (or yellow flags, hee heee). Some of the French kids were shocked that there might be bodies, bombs and tunnels still there, and the guide explained that if they put everything on hold because of leftover war remains, no one would have been able to move on and rebuild at all because France is so littered with war debris.

True, but strange to think about. They still have live munitions buried all over and it's not unusual for farmers to find them. I don't think Americans really understand any of this because we haven't had this kind of war on our land. There weren't bombs like that during the Revoluntionary and Civil wars.

This friendly horse is in a pasture where they have some flags marking the trenches. The flags look like what they put out when the check for gas or electric lines. I'd expect something more heavy duty.

Here's a house build right on top of where there must be tunnels because there are tunnels before and after the house.

This is a big crater that was left after a particularly large explosion. The French soldiers would sneak in and dig below the German trenches and set explosives to blow up the trenches and interfere with their movement. There was some insane amount of explosives used in this one and it left a giant hole that's still there. This is where that warning sign was located and the rim of it is where we had the crazy mud episode.

This little crater within the crater is where the explosives went off.

The guide claims that the lines you see are from kids riding BMX bikes before they fenced it off. THat seems a little far fetched to me because I would think grass would have grown in. The fence looked like it was as old as the crater. You can't go down into the crater now, you walk around the rim.

The land has tons of limestone which is what made the muddy mess. It doesn't seem to bother the farmers at all. This is a piece of the chalky, crumbly limestone.

Lots of pieces of chalk!

This is a French cemetery. Not all of the French soldiers' remains went back to their towns.

These are just bikers but I said it looked like the Tour de France passing by!

My Own Personal GiggleFest

2012-02-14T16:27:00.003-05:00

Today, class, I'm not going to teach you anything that I learned on the field trip except that the US was involved in WW1 but we came really late to the party and no one really bothers telling anyone that we were here. I have lots of pictures and I can bore you with my interpretation of history, but I'd rather show you what made me laugh today.

So first, this is a mall, but it's what you have to go through to get to the big grocery store. They have lots of small convenience stores on corners and they have some small grocery stores in town, but if you want absolutely everything you can get your hands on in one place, you have to drive out to Leclerc or Carrefour. This was where we went to Leclerc which is like a super Walmart or a super Target.

Only in France have I seen people sit down when they scan your groceries. And they don't bag them for you. It's your job, not theirs.

This was from the war museum today. There were lots of posters from of war propaganda from France, Germany and the Brits. This made me laugh because there's a song called It's a Long Long Way to Tipperary but there's also a funny joke in my family about it because of a Mary Tyler Moore episode and a joke about a rary.

At the museum today, you were not allowed to bring your bags into the museum, so everyone had to put them in a special. place. This cave, actually. They had all brought their lunches and had them in bags, so they brought them into this cave and then when it was lunch time, they opened the door and I was shocked to find tables, lights and heat. I know of nothing like this situation in the US and can only say it's just one of those French things: you bring your lunch on a field trip and eat it in a cave.

While your teachers pour a glass of wine for themselves during lunch. So French!

Since we were out the country to look at trenches from WW1, I should not have been surprised to see a tractor driving down the road. But I was.

And it appears that rednecks are everywhere.

This horse had me cracking up because when the whole group of students was walking down the road, he came CHARGING over to us where there was only a barbed wire fence to keep him in and he was happy to let people pat him. I thought I got a video of him racing over to us, but no such luck.

The best part of the day was when we had to walk through some mud which was all limestoney and slick and thick and sticky. I have never seen mud like this. There was no alternative once we were walking through it and people went bananas. Screaming, shrieking, flailing, and of course, someone had to fall and get covered all down one side with mud. There is nothing better to cause hysteria than to make teenagers, French and American alike, get their nice shoes/uggs/sneakers stuck in mud and potentially ruined.

Angry French feet. And maybe some American ones. At this point, they had mostly scraped their shoes but they spent te next 20 minutes not listening to the guide and instead, trying to find leaves and sticks to clean their shoes. Mine were quite mud spattered too but I was wearing shoes that were ok to get dirty. The bus driver must have loved us when we got off.

And after all of my raving about the beauty of the French pastries, I had to laugh when j-ster showed us this. She didn't go on today's field trip because she had the other half of our kids here in town and they learned more about where we are. They were done around 4, so she made supper for us working women who dragged our muddy feet home at 7:30. She bought a pastry for dessert that is sort of like strawberry shortcake with a little pudding like substance and there are 2 macaroons on top. She wasn't especially careful as she brought it home and this is what happened. Doesn't look so pretty now, does it? I had no trouble digging my fork into this one since it had already been blemished!

Ok, you can go now. Bring your notebooks tomorrow for a serious history lesson, sparkling style.

I Didn't Expect to See YOU Here

2012-02-13T03:24:00.001-05:00

Bonjour mes amis!

Yesterday was Sunday our first full day in France and our first full day without our students. They were the responsibility of their host families yesterday, so j-ster and I went to Paris and this is what we saw:

The Velib bikes which are great in the city. You subscribe for a reasonable amount of money and then you just wave your card at the stand and take a bike and then when you're done, you return it to any stand in the city. THey have this in Boston now too. It was too cold for biking but in the summer, I would want to do this as a tourist!

The buildings that make you think of Paris. I like the beige stone that they are made of and the style of the architecture itself.

This is the monument at Place Bastille which is where the Bastille prison was located. Today, the prison is gone and the French celebrate Bastille day as their independence day on July 14th. This is a tribute. There's a gold statue at the top.

This a new opera house that is right near the Bastille. They still have the old Paris opera house, which is where the Phantom of the Opera was set, but this is a more modern building.

I look at this kind of building and know I am in Paris or Washington DC. I'm sure some of you know the style of design, but I just like to look at it!

There were two guys doing some chalk drawings on the ground near the Centre Pompidou, a cultural center named after President Georges Pompidou. I didn't love th picture but it was quite detailed and they were working hard and it's supposed to rain, so it will be a lot work for little reward!

Right outside the Centre Pompidou is a fountain called Firebird which is a tribute to Stravinsky's composition called Firebird. I love this fountain and I've never seen it empty. Since it was empty, people were walking through it, so I got up close and personal with some of my favorite pieces in the fountain.

These lips actually spit out water when the fountain is on and I think it's hysterical. I also thought it was pretty hysterical to be running around inside the fountain.

This is the actual Centre Pompidou. It was considered a monstrosity when it was built, as anything new in Paris first is. Today, it's considered a piece of art itself and they've gotten over it. The pipes are all exposed as you see and they are colored for the purpose they serve. Inside is a library, theater, exhibit hall and maybe a cafeteria, I forget. We didn't go inside yesterday.

We went to this boulangerie twice. First, to get j-ster a quiche for lunch and I got a sandwich. The sandwiches here make me laugh because they are made from a baguette (the long French bread) and are usually ham or cheese or both. YEsterday's selections mostly involved mayonnaise to which I have a very strong aversion in France because I believe I ate some bad mayonnaise here once, so I had to search high and low for non-mayo. And had to get ham and cheese and butter. Which sounds British. But I was starving from all of the walking, so it was quite tasty.

We went back a while later so j-ster could buy a croissant and I took tons of pictures because you know how I feel about croissants. These pastries are ridiculously pretty. I just look because I can't imagine buying and digging in to such a pretty thing. It helped me not gain 45 pounds the first time I was in France because if I'd eaten one each time I'd seen them, well, that would have been ugly.

This is the Hotel De Ville which is Paris town hall. They put up an ice skating rink just in front and I thought it had already been taken down. I 've always thought it was just a free for all but it's actually quite organized and you can rent skates. They have people monitoring the ice and everyone has to behave. And you have a limited amount of time because people are waiting. We might take the kids there one of the evenings that we are in Paris together. We have several ice hockey players with us and though I haven't skated since 5th grade, I might give it a whirl.

I had to take a picture of this stretch Hummer because a) my sister e-ster loves them, b) k-ster loves them and c) it's the last thing I'd expect to see in Paris! It's so tight driving there, I can't imagine!

Notre Dame. We will be going back with kids, so we didn't spend too much time there. You can see the Paris grey skies arrived by the time we got there and it got colder and darker as the day went on. This is the first time I've seen Notre Dame without scaffolding because they've been sandblasting it each time I've seen it!

See, I really am here in Paris!

We stopped at a cafe before taking the train back to e-ster's and this picture is quintessential Paris cafe. We just had coffee and tea and it was too unpleasant to sit outside, so we sat by the window.

As we were about to leave the train station for the 30 minute right back to e-ster's, I heard a kid yelling MADAME MADAME and running toward us but I thought it was just a French kid. Lo and behold, it was 4 of our kids with their host kids taking the train back with us! THey'd been in Paris for the day, getting a whirlwind tour and they had had a blast and were very excited. The French kids have been so nice to them so far and seem equally thrilled to have finally met them.

Earlier in the day, I told j-ster it would be funny if we ran into some kids as we were walking around, so it wasn't such a shock that we ended up seeing some in the station. We figure a lot of kids probably ended up in Paris with their host families or the hosting student because for French kids to run off to Paris for a few hours is no big deal here.

This is the RER train which is the Metro for the suburbs. There are various versions of trains that service this line and the morning train looked to me like an old TGV which is the high speed train. This one here is a typical RER train which is a 2 decker subway. I actually preferred this one to the one we took in the morning. I found it more comfortable. We didn't sit with the kids, in fact, we think they were in a different car all together, but as we got off, we checked in with them again before we all went "home" for supper and better sleeping last night.

I think that's a memory they'll have for a while: running into us in Paris!

Ok kids, class dismissed. Let's meet again tomorrow for more!

My First Successful All Nighter

2012-02-12T06:34:00.002-05:00

In college, I was a night owl, which meant that among my friends, I was usually the last to go to bed. Maybe 2am would be the latest. But I was never one of those people who could pull off an all-nighter. I never needed to because I actually did my stuff on time.

The one time I tried to stay up all night was the night before I left France to go home after my semester in Aix-en-Provence. We had to get a taxi at like 4am, so I just decided to stay up all night and figured I'd sleep on the plane. Instead, I was miserable for the entire day because I was exhausted and had a headache and felt like d-e-a-t-h.

Generally, in my life now, I have no reason to stay up all night because I never have THAT much homework to correct.

I go up at about 5:30am on Friday because that's what I've been doing every day for a few weeks because the trip was on my mind. I went to school and then we left for the airport around 2:30pm on Friday. I am not a good sleeper on planes, but I expected maybe I'd sleep for an hour or so. I was really careful not to have any caffeine after my morning tea.

That made no difference.

I was up from 5:30am Friday until 3:30am FRANCE time on Sunday, which by my calculations was 40 hours with no sleep. And it was weird. I wasn't a zombie. I wasn't shaky. I wasn't giddy. I just didn't have the ability to sleep. We intentionally took 2 long walks once we got situated and I was tired a few times but figured I would just crash once I went to bed. No such luck.

Once I went to sleep, it was great and the room we are staying in has metal shutters that make it dark enough that we slept until 9:30am France time. I hope I'll be more on track by tomorrow because I am not good without enough sleep.

We arrived a little late into Paris but by the time we got our bags and took the bus to the school to drop off the kids, we were actually there at the time we had asked parents to arrive, so someone had the good sense to know how late we'd be.

J-ster and I went back to e-ster's apartment, where j-ster lived for the year she did the Fulbright Exchange and got settled. HAving lived there for a year, she felt very much at home. It has GREAT light and it had a big enough living/dining room that we can put 2 twin air mattresses on the floor and still move around.

This was the view when we were "allowed" to open our shades on the plane. They told us so firmly to shut them after they served dinner that I don't think anyone dared keep them open. Once they served breakfast, I felt like I wouldn't get my hand cut off if I opened the blind and this is what I saw.

At Charles de Gaulle airport, you do the old fashioned walk down the staircase to the tarmac and to a bus. That's a story for another post, but here are some of the kids and j-ster getting off the staricase. It was exceptionally cold yesterday and I actually enjoyed my too warm jacket for the first time this winter!

The Concorde no longer flies, but one is stationed at Charles de Gaulle airport, so the bus driver drove by it so we could take pictures.

This is the school where e-ster works, where we dropped the kids off to meet their families.

This is the Seine river in e-ster's town, Melun. Yes, it's the same Seine that goes through Paris.

I like to see produce stands with all of their fruits and vegetables out front.

I always look at the bakery goods, but I never buy them. They seem so complicated to buy and eat. Too pretty.

We managed to eat 1 of these for lunch and then another for supper. This is what it looks like when you buy it. They don't wear gloves, they wrap the middle in this waxed paper and then you carry it around and put it directly on the table. When in France...

The new Fiat. If you watched the Superbowl, you saw this little baby introduced. IT's cute! This was like a light powder blue but the sun was going down, so the color isn't quite right. By the way, it was a 7pm sunset!! 7pm in FEBRUARY!!

I have no intentions of eating snails while I am here, but I couldn't resist this cute little sign. It pretty much means Snail Alley. It was a cute little paved path between some streets.

More pictures to come, stayed tuned!!

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

2012-02-10T19:04:00.002-05:00

Well, actually it's night, so it's the wild dark yonder.

And it's just Paris, so it's not wild and yonder. More like that busy city over there.

So, I've worried, freaked out, gotten excited and now I'm kind of in this surreal state because I'm waiting to board Air France to jet me over the pond to France.

For 12 days. With 14 kids and another adult, j-ster.

At this point, I am usually FREAKING out over things.

I am rather sedate, actually. I think k-ster slipped me some valium because I'm very blase about everything right now.

The flight is delayed and I've been sitting in the airport for 3 hours already. I've taken about 5 trips around the terminal, trying to keep myself from sitting still for too long. And they have these great rocking chairs by the windows, but people keep sitting in them before I can get there!

Maybe my calm is because it's the first time I've flown to France with someone I know. In fact, with 15 someones that I know. Ok, I didn't know 2 of the boys until today, but I know everyone else because I either taught them or took them to Quebec in 7th grade, or both.

It's so different to travel with familiar faces, isn't it? All of this entertainment ware that I brought for myself suddenly seems unnecessary because I have someone to talk to. That will get old after a few hours though, I am highly equipped with a kindle, some trashy magazines and a word puzzle book. You would think I have raging insomnia with the amount of things I brought to busy my mind when I can't sleep.

I expect that when we land, in the morning, we will be dead tired but we know better than to go to sleep.

We'll drop the kids off with their host families and go to our host teacher's house and then j-ster and I will walk ourselves silly and force ourselves to stay awake until the evening. We both know this is the way to deal with jet lag, and it's so easy to say right now, but at 8:30 France time, 2am my time, my body will have very different ideas, I know.

And it's cold in Melun, France right now. Not as cold as poor eastern Europe right now, but colder than usual. Like in the teens. Farenheit! That's not normal. I left 50 degrees at home today for much colder weather for this trip.

So, I am off to see what happens when I chaperone 14 kids to France.

And to see how long this semi sedation will last.

The Weird Sisters

2012-02-09T06:46:00.000-05:00

Nope, I'm not talking about my sisters, although I suppose we are weird. Who sits on wet rocks for family pictures?

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club and I received a free copy of the book. The opinions expressed are my own, you can all thank God, because if my opinions represented the masses, we'd all be in big trouble.

The Weird Sisters I'm talking about are 3 sisters in the book by Eleanor Brown, The Weird Sisters. I had seen this book a while back and forgot about it and when the BlogHer Book Club asked for readers and I was lucky enough to be one of the fast responders, I was excited.

Excited because I've never read a book for money and excited because I had wanted to read the book and now I had to! And most excited because I MADE IT! I never get to respond to the book club offers in time because I don't have a smart phone and by the time I respond, it's already full!

One of the first things I liked about the book is the cover. I am all about covers. I really do judge books by their covers. I often look at the cover after I've read a book and suddenly realize just what I'm seeing. There are often little things that are subtly woven into the cover that we don't bother to see. I feel bad for covers, actually.

So, upon opening the cover, I was a little dismayed to read the foreword because they talked about how they were a strange group growing up, and their whole family would speak in verse by Shakespeare. They were a very intellectual family and didn't have a TV. They read incessantly. I thought this was a little too weird for me and I almost didn't want to read it because I though these little snippets of verse were going to be annoying.

And at first they were. But then, she either stopped having them use as much verse, or I got used to it because after a couple of chapters, I could not put this book down and the verse didn't annoy me.

The 3 sisters are called weird in the Shakesperean way of having almost otherworldy powers and knowledge, like they should be sat in awe of. Not weird, like they didn't have a tv and they were so weird.

The book is written in the first person plural so you are constantly seeing 'we' and 'our' no matter who is telling the story. And you never really know who is talking because they are all telling the story, except, of course, when there is dialogue. I really liked that twist. I've never read a book from that perspective before. It almost makes me think it's non-fiction, like they are sitting with me and telling me their story!

The girls are all adults and have come home because their mother is sick. Again, when I found this out, I almost didn't want to read it because I'm tired of everyone in books having cancer nowadays. While this is the whole reason they have reunited and it's a very large part of the book, it's almost like it's in the background and you just say "yeah ok, but then what happened?" Brown does a great job of telling us just enough about their mother's cancer without making it all doom and gloom.

The two younger sisters, Bean and Cordy, each have come home with a shocking secret. Rose, who has already been living in their parents' town doesn't have a secret but she is carrying her own burden. And they don't really talk much to each other or share secrets, so they have somewhat of a cold relationship. Not mean, just not all hugs and cheer and sharing of everything.

Throughout the book, we see each character share her burden with the others and they all figure out how to deal with them, but in their reserved, not close kind of way. They deal with their mother's illness, their father's bizarreness and each of their issues in a very dysfunctional but seemingly normal family, in my eyes, anyway.

I really enjoyed this book and I'm ready to read some more of Eleanor Brown's books. The plot moves along nicely and leaves you wondering what will happen next, and I really had trouble stopping when my eyes were closing every night! She does a great job of setting the scene and I truly felt like I could step into Barnwell tomorrow because it seemed so real!

Head on over to our discussion on the Blogher Bookclub page and see what everyone else has to say about it!

This was the first book I've read on a kindle. My sister e-ster let me borrow it to take to France. I kind of like the idea of the kindle and it was so easy to borrow the book through my library. I still love a book in my hand, but I am not so opposed to the kindle right now. However, with the basic kindle, I won't see the covers anymore and as I just said, I do kind of like to see the cover of a book.....

How I Got Kicked Out of Gillette Stadium on My Birthday

2012-02-05T11:10:00.001-05:00

Way back in October, I went to a technology conference at Gillette Stadium, home of the Patriots. You know, the guys who are playing in the Superbowl this very day? AGAIN? Yeah, those guys.

It's the first, and I assume, last time I will ever be in a professional football stadium. Because I just don't care. SORRY. I just don't. Football is lost on me. Most sports are. I'm a girl. I was raised with ballet and crafts, not balls and bats.

After I graduated from college, the football and baseball bandwagon stopped by my house and while everyone else was jumping on, I missed it. I was probably doing this or maybe this and I wouldn't be surprised if I was doing this. But I definitely was NOT doing this. Anyway, the bandwagon pulled away and there went my mother, my sisters and even my father. But he only had one leg in. He can't be fully invested in sports.
While I continued to live in a world where I didn't know one Manning from the other, Tom Brady's name really just made me think of the Brady Bunch and Ochocinco impressed me only on Dancing With the Stars, my sisters were busy following the Patriots, getting my mother a jersey to wear (was it Vinateri? did he play baseball? do baseball players wear jerseys?) and scoring tickets to games whenever they could.

That's right. My family that didn't watch a single sports game in my entire childhood suddenly had to put everything on hold because it's 1pm on Sunday and there's a game on. I walked into my parents' house to find my mother, and sometimes my father, so engrossed in the game that if I had burst into flames, they would have waited until the end of a quarter to put me out.

Going to Gillete Stadium to see a game when she came home for a visit was suddenly not beyond a-ster's plans. Getting excited to have friends over to watch a regular season game was probably the reason e-ster bought her own house.

So back to my conference. It was a tech conference for teachers. They had an opening welcome in a swanky restaurant thing (I am so out of touch, I have no clue, but I think only certain levels of ticket holders can go there) and then the mini sessions were in the boxes.

It should have come as no surprise to me when I sent my sisters this picture:

...and they immediately wrote back WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT GILLETTE??

Seriously, I didn't even have to show them the name on the building. I never thought we'd be the kind of family that could name a stadium just buy looking at the glass.

So, the boxes were kind of nice, but for a conference, they were too small. I guess if you were seriously going to watch the game with friends or clients, this would be an exciting way to do it. But it didn't impress me much. They have their own bars and TV screens and seats facing out.

They each had their own bathrooms. That did kind of impress me.

See how crowded we were? One was kind of hot, too and I felt trapped. I got to this first picture early and got a seat but then realized the presentation was NOT out on the field, so I had to stand to see what was presented. DUH.

I was late getting to this session, so I had to cram in and stand at the back like a lot of these other fools.

This was the view at some level, on the way over to the other side to get to our lunch that they served in that same restaurant. I wasn't too impressed with that but it was included in the registration. I forgot to take a picture of that, but it wasn't worth it, really.

I was amazed at the screen. When you get close to it, like this, it's really just a bunch of lightbulbs. And it's a huge screen. Ridiculously huge. And it was playing stuff the whole time.

This was the view from one of the boxes. I actually made me a little dizzy and I'm not one to be bothered by heights. I think if the stadium had been full and people had been on the field, I might have not noticed the dizziness. See the wire in the middle top? I have no idea what it was, but it went from there to the end zone on the right. I spent a lot of time imagining that it was a zip line. That made me even more dizzy.

The conference wasn't as awesome as I thought it might be. The freebies weren't so great because there was a lot of pressure to listen to the people talk about their product before giving you the free post its or pencils or whatever teachers want to take back to their classrooms. I'm used to foreign language association conferences where they give so much free stuff I have to bring another bag home.

And I got in trouble.

A friend of mine had driven because she knew where it was and I thought it was like a million miles away. Turns out, it's not as far as I thought. And it was nice to have a chauffeur.

About halfway through the day, the Patriots came to practice, but out on a practice field. There was a warning in the conference guide that if they came to practice, you were not to take ANY pictures AT ALL.

So I didn't.

We noticed a huge increased in "security" when they arrived. Lots of people standing around in suits, especially near the gangway that went by where they were practicing. They weren't as covert as they'd like to think they were. But I had no intentions of taking pictures or videos and I certainly couldn't steal any secrets because I care so little about the game.

As we were leaving the building, we noticed 2 suits near the escalator we were taking down. I noticed one of them on a phone and noted that if I had wanted to, I could totally have taken a picture at that point, but I didn't care.

We exited the building a little further down from where we had entered and we were a little discombobulated. We were leaving slightly early, so we seemed to be the only people leaving. We were very engrossed in a conversation about a cool thing she had seen about video taping kids and having a green screen and we were contemplating how to get a grant to get this little product. We were headed toward her car which was about 3 sections of parking lot away and we started to cut through.

A man who looked like a parking attendant with a golf car asked us if we knew where we were going and we explained that our car was just over there. No, we didn't need to be driven over, we could walk, thanks. Just right over there, by the portapotties. And we kept walking.

And he was like "you can't be in there, you can't be in there, you need to get out of there, get out of there now" and we were both kind of stuck in confusion.

My friend was slightly further behind, so she just walked around this fencepost thing, but I was kind of trapped, so I saw an exit like one car width away. I kept walking and the guy was like "ma'am get out of there now, you need to get out of there NOW" and I was like "really, you expect me to squeeze between these fencposts? It's like 6 inches wide" and he was like "YES NOW." and my friend was like "sparkling, just get out here!"

My friend jokingly said "what, is this the players' parking lot?" and he was like "umm yeah".

As we crossed to the building side of the lot so we could get to her car in a more appropriate manner, we noticed another suit had just come out of the building and another was waiting up on one of the levels near the escalator we had just come down.

SERIOUSLY? Two teachers were going to destroy a player's car? There were no signs. They didn't have a "special" part of the lot like I would expect. No "reserved" signs. Nothing would have indicated that these were players' cars if that big mouth hadn't said anything.

We're teachers for God's sake! We were talking about TECHNOLOGY we can't afford for our classroom, that we want to get a stinking $200 grant to buy! Not plotting bugging Belechek's car.

Wait, then we could have sold the secrets and bought enough equipment for the whole school to video tape kids! We are so dumb!!

How I Broke A Cardinal Rule But Didn't Get Excommunicated

2012-02-03T07:26:00.003-05:00

You might have read about my aversion to boxed cake mixes. In fact, I've probably touted my faith in the made from scratch cake in about 80 of my posts. I just don't like cake mixes and I feel like it's a failure to make one. Yes, I judge you that harshly if you buy a cake mix, a brownie mix, or GOD HELP ME, those cookie mixes in a a tube that you just slice. I can still be friends with you, but I can't get past that little flaw. Sorry. It doesn't take much more time to make a cake from scratch than it does to buy the mix, get the eggs, oil and water, mix them and put them in baking pans. It's the same mess either way.

But, I also explained in this post, that I am bad yellow/white cake maker when I make them from scratch. I can't explain my issue other than they are heavy and not great. I've tried a variety of recipes and a variety of oils and still, they just suck. I can make a chocolate cake like it's my job, but not yellow or white from scratch.

Enter my brilliant idea to make a cake to celebrate 5 years of my French group, Table Française. I didn't want to buy a store bought cake because those from the grocery store are even more foul tasting to me than what I can make. I find them very salty. Anyone else? I didn't want to spend crazy money on professional cakes, so I decided to make my own.

So I did this dirty deed. The giggling little bastard was on sale for $1 per box. So I had to choose this one. And there was PUDDING IN THE MIX! A whole CUP! Gag.

But I had a reason that I needed to make a white or yellow cake. Recently, I saw this recipe for making a rainbow cake and I realized I simply had to do it in the colors of the French flag for our celebration.

You take boxed cake mix, you spoon some out into bowls and add the food coloring of your choice to each bowl. Get a bundt pan (mine is of questionable teflon or a substance like it and I need to replace it) and start putting in your colors beside each other. They will run together a little bit but they don't all merge into one big mess. If you look here, you'll see many more colors than I did.

When you bake it, it looks kind of gross on the outside, but as you slice it, it has lovely colors. I don't love the outside of the cake, seen here, but it wasn't about me, it was about our 5 year anniversary, right?

I broke so many rules that night, I think they cancelled each other out and it's a draw but I could not completely cave and buy canned frosting, so I made a lard/powdered sugar delight with a touch of mint. Sadly, no amount of red dye would give me actual red, so as I look at it now, it looks more like a baby shower cake with pinks and blues.

Given that the average age of this group is about 75, they probably had no clue that I was trying to be cute and do red, white and blue for the French flag. They probably thought i thought it was pretty to do pink and blue. I think they find me to be a little on the bizarre side anyway. No wait, I find THEM to be the bizarre ones. Anyway...

It tasted... like a boxed cake, but it fit the need and all were pleased. The pictures I took of what the slices looked like didn't come out, so this is all I have.

The slices were red or blue or white or a swirl of any of the three. It looks pretty. I would do it again. But I really need to make it from scratch next time.

Flagging Down the Mother Ship

2012-01-31T20:02:00.002-05:00

K-ster and his friend j-ster recently reshingled and resided our shop and in the process, added a new light that my father bought a while ago.

For about 6 months, we've been in PURE darkness in the yard at night because the old light was broken. And another light we had came crashing down during the visit of that witch Irene.

I sent this picture to my sister to try to show her how bright the new light is. Her reaction:

Is that Bethlehem???

There's a star in the east on Christmas morn, rise up shepherd and follow....

Keurig Made Me Cave

2012-01-30T19:30:00.001-05:00

Do you have one of these marvelous money saving machines? We bought one over a year ago because k-ster thought it might break him of the daily Dunkin Donuts habit. I did a lot of mathematical research and determined that with all of the gift cards I had for Bed, Bath and Beyond (thank you Discover card points!!) I could practically get the machine for free.

You might notice we have a very snazzy version. Or so k-ster says. I couldn't care less. It's digital and can be programmed to come on by itself. And k-ster's favorite part? It can make a 14oz beverage, which most of the Keurig models do not. If only it could walk over to the sink and fill up its own water reservoir.

He determined that he cannot make coffee at home to outdo Dunkin Donuts unless it is a) at least 14 ounces and b) in a styrofoam cup, complete with lid.

You may have read about my nature habits, so it should seem insanely bizarre that I condone the ordering of styrofoam cups and plastic lids for daily throwing away, but if it made him stop spending money at DD, then I was all for it. I figure what I do to try to help the environment will offset what he does to ruin it.

I found super cheap cups, the exact model that k-ster required, for pennies each if we bought 1000. And so, we bought 1000. Seriously. $25 for 1000 cups. And then we bought like a million lids.

And k-ster has hardly had a DD coffee in all this time. He actually prefers Tully's Kona over DD's burned tasting crapola. Even though k-cups cost a fortune, I manage to get them as cheap as I can find them at Bed, Bath and Beyond. They are the only place I can find Tully's Kona now that Tully's stopped making it. I try to keep it to 50 cents per k-cup.

One of the drawbacks of having the Keurig is that now you have tons of plastic cups all over the place, either in the box they came in, or falling all over themselves. Thankfully, someone decided to make a special drawer just for the Keurig and all of its accoutrements and I had to go and buy it. See how neat and tidy it keeps everything? I love that when you open the drawer, it doesn't stick and the whole thing doesn't slide around. It was $24 at Bed, Bath and Beyond (surprise!), but I used my 20% coupon and saved a little. They give those coupons out like candy, and I take every opportunity to save as much as I can at that store.

By the way, the Khalua? Not such a great coffee. It smells like feet.

My Greenhouse in January

2012-01-28T09:19:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe that a year ago, k-ster was just getting over his foot surgery and things had come to a complete halt on the greenhouse. In fact, looking back, even at the end of March, I didn't have a completely finished greenhouse.

Once I got things going in the spring, after it was all assembled, I was really pleased with how everything grew. I kept you updated all summer about things I was growing in and outside of my greenhouse. Even into October, I was still getting vegetables, a rarity in New England.

After we had a flash frost in October that no one was expecting, things started to get ugly in the greenhouse, but I did manage to keep some things poking along for a while. I even bragged here at the end of November. Around that same time, I started these little guys, knowing that broccoli would probably survive all winter in a cold greenhouse. Swiss chard probably would too. I know this because outside, they have both held on until way into December.

Today, this is what's happening.

Those little broccoli plants are now making little florets.

My Swiss chard in an old wheelbarrow. It's not doing much, but it's more than nothing.

New broccoli and chard on my new Germination Station mat.

Broccoli is all growing. The two white pots are geraniums that I thought might make it, but they are pretty much brown sticks now.

Who knew that a greenhouse is like another effing room in the house that you have to organize, and arrange and keep clean??? It's been a mess since I started because I was in a hurry and didn't know what I wanted to do for shelving.

We had a really warm Saturday a few weeks ago, so I spent the day rearranging and "building" and now there's a little more space for my walking tours :).

I am trying not to spend any money on the greenhouse now that I spent my life savings buying the damned thing. I'm trying to recycle as much as possible in there. This "table" is a piece of aluminum from an awning and it's laying on cinder blocks. I hope it's strong enough and won't bend where there aren't blocks. My poor wheelbarrow almost broke from moving the blocks in here!

I moved this old picnic table to the other side and those pots are waiting for the new broccoli and chard seeds to be big enough to plant.

Now you can at least walk around. Before, the table was where this chair is and there were pots all over the ground and it was just a mine field of branches and leaves and bamboo poles holding up beans and tomatoes. Part of that was due to Irene threatening to ruin all that was good. We dragged every potted plant into the greenhouse and some never left because it was almost September and ~~mostly because we are kind of lazy~~.

That thing on the chair is a mattress pad. My theory was that I could cover my plants on the super cold nights and it might help trap some of the heat from the black fabric and keep things happy. In reality, it's a pain to throw over them, I never remember until after dark and I'm pretty sure it hasn't done a single thing for me.

When I get home from France, my Germination Station will be filled with seeds hoping to have a home for the spring. My ultimate fantasy is that I will start so many seeds that I will have to sell some and possibly make a few dollars in this process. Huh. Fantasy. I know.

Wow, looking at this last picture is making me quiver, thinking back to this awful night.

I Am So Not the Pioneer Woman

2012-01-26T19:05:00.000-05:00

It's a really good thing it's not the 1800s and I'm not in charge of feeding the masses because we'd all be dead in about 2 weeks.

In the fall, I embarked on my first experience of "putting up" fruits and vegetables for the this winter. It's something I'd wanted to do for a while, but I had some serious fears of exploding pressure cookers and bochulism.

I successfully blanched and froze a few bags of green beans and thought they would last us a while.

After my trial run of spaghetti sauce and winter squash, we went apple picking and then it got serious when I bought an apple peeler. We got 40 lbs of apples and I went to work making applesauce, apple butter and a couple of apple pies. Those pies were to die for. I can't tell you what kind of apples they were, but they were really good.

I made what I thought was a lot of applesauce, a good amount of apple butter and not enough apple pies.

What I really made was not enough applesauce, way too much apple butter and too many apple pies (because they took up so many of my apples!)

Then I asked k-ster to bring me home a few cranberries because he works next to a cranberry bog. 3/4 of a paper grocery bag later and I had enough cranberries to put Ocean Spray out of business.

This was all in October.

Today, it's not even the end of January, and I'm down to this:

My last jar of applesauce. I made some damned good applesauce this fall. This batch was darker because I let it cook in the crockpot so it browned a little because it took so long. One batch had the prettiest hint of pink.

Sadly, we have way too many jars of applebutter left and I've been giving them away left and right. I'm not really in love with it. I used a recipe that was USDA approved but it suggested way too many cloves for my liking. It kind of numbs my tongue. It took a lot more apples to make the apple butter than the applesauce and I am having canner's regret!

We have a number of cranberry sauce jars left and 2 jars of winter squash that I keep forgetting about.

The green beans have long since been eaten.

The cupboards are nearly bare.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, you'd be so ashamed!

Next year, more apples, no apple butter, and I'm going to start freezing green beans much earlier. I had no idea how much planning had to go into providing food through the cold, hard winter!

Hasta La Vista

2012-01-25T19:25:00.000-05:00

Well, maybe there won't be a next time.

I did it. I cut my hair all off.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I just couldn't deal with my nasty locks anymore. Once I realized long hair is not for me, I started toying with the idea of giving it to Locks For Love so they can make wigs for cancer patients. But they need 10 inches and that is a lot when my hair was already making me nuts.

Then someone told me about Pantene's Beautiful Lengths (no I am not being compensated for this post) and they only need 8 inches. That seemed a little more feasible. Plus, have you ever known me to do something without an ulterior motive? If I'm going to grow this hair and cut it off, I might as well have a good reason, right?

I saw in the paper that there was a cut-a-thon at a salon on Sunday, so I called and got in. It was for a non profit that is trying to prove there are nasty things in the water. I dont' especially care about the foundation, but a $20 haircut was looking really good.

I met my haircutter c-ster, who swore up and down she knew me and we played the why do I know you game but never figured it out. I told her I wanted to cut it but that it has to be long enough to put off my face. She got a ruler and determined that I could really get 10 inches off and still have plenty to put back.

It was a little scary having her get the clippers and shave my ponytail off. What if she slipped??

But here it is, in all its glory. I still don't think it was quite 10 inches and Locks for Love won't use it if it isn't, so I sent it to Pantene. Now someone else can deal with my less than stellar hair.

And voilà the results are in.

Oh wait, there's this. Before I can share the remarkable results, I have to tell you how this happened. As I mentioned, my stylist is named c-ster. I liked her right off the bat and we chatted the whole time.

Along the way, I mentioned that I sell lia sophia jewelry. She said she doesn't actually work in this salon but owns her own down the road and would like to maybe sometime host a lia sophia show in her salon. I told her I happen to have a catalog right here. Then she said "sure, I'll host a show".

This never happens in my life. They always tell us to bring our catalogs and info everywhere and leave them in every place we go, but I don't seem to have as many appointments as most people, so my potential bookings from offices are limited.

I was so excited that she was interested that when she pulled out her phone to get her calendar, I told her to wait and let me get mine from the car. I was thrilled. This was like textbook for how to get a booking.

While I was out collecting the hostess packet and my calendar, fearing I would get back inside and she would have changed her mind, I threw everything, including my cut off ponytail on the seat. I backed up to shut the door and my pants got caught. But I didn't realize, I so kept backing up and they pulled out like a foot beside me and I realized they were caught. I undid them from the latch they were caught on, pulled my sweatshirt down and raced back inside. I had no idea until I got home just how badly I had ripped them.

I keep picturing what would have happened if I hadn't stopped backing up when I did and just completely shredded them. How great would that have looked as I raced back inside to book the show?

C-ster didn't seem to notice and we booked and are all set for March. Phew.

Now, on to the results.

When I was in high school, I participated in an All State chorus extravaganza and all I remember from the weekend is a) sleeping on a literal army cot in some stranger's house, b) sitting in an auditorium with hundreds of chorus members and c) learning from a boy that when a girl's hair does this, it's called "the web". I strove for a good portion my life to make my hair do "the web" and now that I don't even care, it magically did this when k-ster took my picture.

I should let k-ster take my pictures more often instead of using the self timer. You get a little more of a view of what I happen to think I look like. And the hair is totally more me. Clearly not a lot of work went into styling this, but I didn't have to because it's kind of fun. I've had this haircut like 100 times in my life and I should probably stick with it.

It also doesn't really know what to do with itself. It's trying to be straight, trying to wave, trying to sit still, trying to bounce around. Hey, that sounds kind of familiar.

And I let it stay down ALL DAY and didn't even kill anyone! I hardly thought about it, actually.

So Long, Farewell

2012-01-24T15:04:00.000-05:00

My hair and I have never had a great relationship. It was a great shade of blonde when I was really little and then it got a little darker when I was in elementary school. I know we don't say people have hazel hair the way they have hazel eyes, but I'd say my hair is hazel.

I don't color it and won't, though I did do a henna phase in high school and I may have used some Sunin a time or 50. Any highlighting I've ever had in my hair was due to sun and Sunin, strategically applied.

This was my senior picture in high school and it's about the only time I've truly liked a picture of my hair. My bangs are a little short, but I love the rest of it. My hair now has lots of white in it but because my hair is hazel, you can't tell until you get close to it. If you look at my hair up close, it's got lots of pretty colors in it, but from a distance, it's not anything remarkable. It looks best when it's been blown dry and is super clean, but I don't wash it every day (the horrors!) so it's not always super shiny.

Since about 5th grade, my hair has never made it past my shoulders. I had years where it was boy short and most of my years have seen my hair between chin and shoulder length. There have been some very unfortunate styles along the way that were not flattering or that required more time to "do" than I was willing to do.

You know I'm all natural, so putting lots of crap in my hair and styling it just isn't my thing. I did curl my bangs every morning in high school, but that was about the extent of it.

I had a few perms along the way, but sadly, the last one was a nasty one and I think it forever changed my hair. I think she actually burned part of my hair.

When left to its natural devices, my hair has waves and a little curl that tries to come out. But it's kind of helter skelter.

Since I've been teaching, I've always taken my showers at night which means that I have to have hair that can be brushed in the morning and go. I can't have a short haircut that goes every which way when I sleep on it.

I also cannot stand my hair touching me anywhere, most especially when I am exercising. That means I require that it can go as short as you want, but it HAS to be long enough to put back when I exercise.

I used to think that a long ponytail while running would be awesome. I wanted to be bopping along, this cute ponytail flipping along with me. This is because I often see a woman running on my way to school who has the thickest, more gorgeous ponytail I've ever seen. It just looks awesome when she runs.

I however, do not have thick hair. And now that I've let it grow, it's even worse. I always thought I just needed to let it grow past some magical point and then it would all come together.

I let it grow to the middle of my back. And it's gross. It touches me all.the.time. I keep it up and back just about all.the.time. When it's down, it makes me hot and grouchy and SO ITCHY. And it's just not pretty.

So, I keep meaning to call my hairdresser but I never get around to it. I thought I might wait until I get home from France but it's making me insane.

So I made an appointment to get it cut at a fundraiser cutathon. Pictures to follow so come back tomorrow.

Until then, enjoy these glam shots because it's sayonara after this post.

I know, I should do Pantene commercials, my hair is that great. But I'm too busy doing stuff like this.

Mother Nature's One Day Assignment

2012-01-23T14:38:00.000-05:00

You might have heard that we had a little snow in the northeast on Saturday.

It was the first storm we've had since October, and back in October, we didn't even get the snow, but other parts of the state were hit pretty hard. October is NOT the normal opening month for snow around here. Late November is more like it. I can't remember a winter when we went as late as mid January before we saw any real snow, though. This was the kind of storm that is ideal in a lot of ways.

1) It was on a Saturday. This is ideal for a lot of people because it didn't interfere with their Monday - Friday work. It was also not a school day, so though we do love those surprise phone calls cancelling school, we do not love making the days up in June. And it allowed for kids to sled all day Sunday.

2) It was not frigid. This is ideal because when it's super cold and snows, everything gets icy, things break and it's just a mess and dangerous.

3) It was not a super heavy snow. Super heavy snow is never ideal, unless you are snowman builder. Heavy snow breaks equipment and makes it really hard to shovel, thus injuring people in many ways.

4) It snowed only during daylight hours. This is unusual and I say ideal because when it snows at night, it gets really dangerous out there.

5) It wasn't a blizzard. This wasn't a wind-howling blizzard that knocked out power lines and put ice all over everything. Those are dangerous storms. This was more of an inconvenience.

Don't get me wrong, we got about 8-10 inches of snow. But since it was steady all day, it was manageable and everything was plowed by the next morning. But when you have 8-10 inches from a raging blizzard, you get huge drifts, you get dangerous power lines down and you get icy conditions that are impossible to plow and sand.

I'm a bit of an expert when it comes to snow removal because, well, this has been the scene outside my door for most of my life:

I've even had to remove snow myself, a time or two. It's not all it's glorified to be, especially for those who are short and don't especially love to drive. And have very tiny bladders that need to be emptied on a regular basis from all the coffee consumed to stay awake.

I even went to the barn and rode in the middle of it. We had about 2 inches when I got there and I was surprised to see the horses were all still out.

They all have blankets so they stay warm but I feel bad that their heads get wet. They didn't seem to be too fazed by it and happily munched away on their morning hay.

Because of the indoor ring, we can ride all winter. This is new for me. I haven't ridden a whole winter before.

By the time I left the barn, we had a little more snow and then the fun began. I'd say we had about 4 inches by then and it was sooooooooo slippery. 4 wheel drive does nothing for you when it's a slippery snow. It gives slightly more grip to power through things, but when you're going around a curve and your steering wheel is turned one way and your butt is going the other, 4 wheel drive can't help you there. I have never felt such slippery driving. Never.

At least people were decent about driving. Another thing I attribute to the fact that it was Saturday. Frogmama has a great post about the fury of people in her neck of the woods, just a few hours from my neck of the woods. I'd say people were quite rational where I was driving. They drove slowly, gave each other wide berths, didn't honk and freak out. Had this been a weekday morning or late afternoon, I suspect there would have been more road rage, but at noon on Saturday, I think people were a little more at ease.

I like to imagine what it's like in Mother Nature's household after this kind of storm. Mother comes home from a hard day at work, Father Time (cuz that's her husband, right?) has supper waiting on the table. She blows through the door in a chilly wind and he says :

"Hi honey, how was work today?"

"Oh fine dear, I gave it a good 10 hours at the office today, catching up on some work, making a few people happy. I wanted to be home in time for supper, so I cut out a little early, made sure I cleaned up before I left."

Now let's make sure no one pisses her off for the rest of the winter and we might have a happy one!

Vintage My Itchy Ass

2012-01-22T15:45:00.001-05:00

I sell things on etsy, as some of you know, but I rarely poke around at what other people sell because much of what I find for sale is nothing I would ever entertain buying.

I'm also more than a little amazed at what people can charge for things and actually get. I'm lucky if I can get anything close to what I want people to pay.

Today, I was nosing around and you will not believe what I found:

vintage highwaist undies

Old fashioned is the new best thing ever. Vintage cut has got you covered on so many levels we cannot even begin to list them.

made with upcycled merino or cashmere wool
$60
cotton gusset with covered elastic

S - M - L - XL
machine cold wash, hang to dry

we make all our pieces CUSTOM yeahhhhhh
so.... if you want a pair you gotta tell us what you want so we can craft it +++

Ok, there are so many things wrong here.

Old fashioned underwear- haven't we worked really hard to get away from our granny's panties???

Highwaist undies- what the heck are these boys shorts and low rise undies for if we are just going to go back to highwasit???

Merino or cashmere wool- JACKPOT. I can't even BEGIN to imagine the nightmare of wearing these things. I get so itchy in wool and even soft cashmere when they are the top layers. Layer some clothing on top of these???

Are you kidding?

I would be naked before I got to school. That would be me, on the side of the road, between school and home stripping off all of my clothes in a fit of rage, scratching like I've got mange!! I am so itchy just thinking about it. Add to that the very idea of wearing anything knitted on my butt and it's all over. Gross. Just gross.

made with upcycled merino or cashmere wool -I'm sorry, doesn't upcycled really mean recycled? Like I take an old sweater, cut it up into something new and call it upcycled, right? So you want me to wear someone's old sweater on my nether region?

$60- this and the fact that they are wool are tied for my favorite part of the whole post. You really expect me to pay $60 for a pair of underwear that come up almost under my boobolas, will make me scratch myself 'til I'm raw and may have been some nasty old cigar smoking man's sweater?????

They've sold 100 of them! Seriously!

Just Add Rum

2012-01-21T19:23:00.001-05:00

A while ago, k-ster was remodeling a house with someone, and when they took out the walls, he found this recipe stuck in it. Thinking this was some kind of destiny, I made this cake for someone's birthday. It was either his, or his mother's. We had some of his family here for it.

Notice the pink post it. You are supposed to put 1/3 cup of rum in the batter and then 1/3 cup of rum in the "frosting". I say "frosting" because it consists of cool whip, rum, pudding mix and crushed pineapple. That is not a frosting. We found 1/3 cup of rum in the frosting to be WAAAAAAY too much.

It's pretty. It sounds excellent. Like a pina colada cake. I like coconut, I usually like cake, I love pineapple and I like the smell of rum. You can't go wrong.

But, we didn't all seem to love it so much. It was good but not great. The "frosting" was a little overkill with the rum. And no one asked me for the recipe.

Today is k-ster's birthday. We celebrated it last night with a cousin, so we had a yellow cake and a chocolate cake.

Somehow, I got a bug up my butt that I needed to make this cake again for his birthday. Now, we had a snowstorm today, but I plowed ahead (ha ha ha ha ha ha) and went to the grocery for the 2 boxes of pudding mix, the cool whip, the pineapple and the rum. 3 out 4 things I would never have laying around my house.

I should call this fake cake.

But I make it "real" because I don't use cake mix. I refuse to use cake mix. Sadly, I don't make good yellow cakes. They taste like crap every time. It's the oil. I learned not to use olive oil the hard way, but even canola oil I can taste and smell.

Chocolate cakes, cheesecakes, patty cakes, I can make those with no complaints.

Now, the normal person would probably not say that the issue with my yellow cakes is the smell and taste of the oil. They are also kind of dense. But because I am super smell and taste sensitive, all I can think about is the smell of fat.

I can smell fat from a mile away. We have some kind of soap in our dispensers at school that is supposed to be super clean or whatever and all I can smell in it is fat. No one knows what I am talking about.

But I digress.

I kind of thought that using my yellow cake recipe with the things that this recipe calls for would cancel out the fat taste, but it doesn't work that way. Between the oil in the cool whip and the oil in the cake, it's like a greasefest and I can't enjoy it.

Maybe that's why I frosted it like I had actually consumed the 2/3 cup of rum first.

Maybe that's the key. Take some big swigs of rum and then eat it and it taste soooooo good.

K-ster still says it tastes good but I'm not so sure. I should probably throw the recipe away because I will never buy a yellow cake mix, so I will never make this cake taste good.

Happy birthday to k-ster who spent #38 waiting all day for the snow to stop so he can now spend all night snowblowing and plowing. The only better present would be if he owned a snowmobile and could be at Snowdeo right now. But, it looks like my future as a pastry chef is nil, so I guess pushing snow around will have to suffice.

When Life Gives You A Canoe

2012-01-19T18:52:00.000-05:00

Ask your cousin to drive you around the yard with his lawnmower.

What? You didn't do this on Christmas with your cousins**?

Is it the lifejackets that crack you up the most?

**all cousins mentioned are k-ster's cousins. My cousins don't even own a yard canoe.